Cúig bliana ag fás! WP Engine Limerick Surpasses 100 Employees

The opening of WP Engine’s Limerick, Ireland office in 2016 represented a significant expansion of our customer support and engineering capabilities across Europe, while at the same time, it served as the spark for something much more local.

The early days of our Limerick office saw the beginnings of a team that’s put its own unique stamp on one of WP Engine’s fastest-growing locations, while earning our international customers’ trust with every, single interaction.  

Robert Kielty, a Demand Generation Manager who was one of WP Engine Limerick’s first hires, recalled the all-hands-on-deck atmosphere when things first got started in 2016. 

”Everyone wanted to be part of this exciting, fast-paced company that had just arrived from Austin, Texas,” he said. “We all felt connected to the development and growth of the company as a whole, and the team has also always focused on its role in Limerick, putting our own Irish lens on what has become a hugely successful base of operations for our European support and engineering teams.”

That success is perhaps most visible through the growth of the Limerick “office” itself, which has expanded, even while going fully remote over the past year, from less than a dozen employees in 2016 to more than 100 employees and counting—a landmark goal that was set when the Limerick office first launched.

Since the doors opened nearly five years ago, our amazing Limerick team has indeed played a pivotal role in WP Engine’s overall growth with award-winning customer service and around-the-clock support and development for our industry-leading managed WordPress platform.  

“Watching this team grow and seeing the impact it’s had has been incredible,” said Paul Ryan, Senior Director of Support & Site Lead at WP Engine Limerick. “But it’s really just the beginning.” 

“We have huge plans for this year and beyond,“ he added. “Limerick is an amazing city with so much talent, and we aim to open up a number of new roles that will expand our impact even further.”

A growing team for an expanding customer base.

While much of WP Engine Limerick’s growth has been specific to our support and product & engineering departments (support alone will make up 50% of the entire Limerick office with a new influx of hires in May and June), the team has also seen the addition of HR, finance, and IT roles since 2016. 

All of these additions have helped the Limerick team operate with greater agility, in its own time zone, while performing a seamless handoff with WP Engine’s other global teams, including those in Kraków, Poland, and Brisbane, Australia. 

“With team members from product, engineering, and UX, it completes the mighty triad of P&E (Product, Eng, UX) and allows our teams to own strategic domains and go faster,” said Haidee McMahon, Sr. Director of Product of WP Engine’s Foundation Product Line, who leads teams across the U.S., Limerick, and Kraków.

“Having all product team members in the same time zone has accelerated our ability to innovate.” 

As our customer base has widened across EMEA, all of these departments have been integral in maintaining the high level of platform performance and customer support WP Engine is known for around the world. 

A thriving center of tech innovation and talent. 

When WP Engine was evaluating locations for a new support and engineering hub in Europe, Limerick jumped out as an early frontrunner for a couple of key reasons. 

For starters, the Shannonside city was already well-known as a growing center of technology and innovation, fueled by local talent and numerous entrepreneurial initiatives led by local government officials and business leaders.

As part of the Limerick 2030 Vision: An Economic and Spatial Plan for Limerick, Limerick is investing over €1 billion in enterprise and investment infrastructure. While other investment initiatives have played a major role in attracting businesses to Limerick, the city’s pool of highly skilled tech talent has also been a factor. 

Tapping into that growing community of tech talent and supporting the city of Limerick have both been ongoing priorities for WP Engine. Despite the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, our Limerick team has remained focused on local job creation throughout a variety of channels. 

The nearby University of Limerick, which recently achieved a five-star ranking in the influential global QS Stars Rating System, has played a major role here as well. The recent ranking places the university in the top 2% of all universities globally, and it’s the only university in Ireland to achieve this distinction in 2021. 

Through the university’s Cooperative Education (CoOp) program, which provides university students with eight-month internships before they graduate, CoOp students get the opportunity to develop essential skills relevant to the workplace. WP Engine Limerick has been a proud CoOp program participant since 2018!

A new home for a bright future.

In addition to ongoing hiring, construction is set to resume on WP Engine’s new office space in the heart of downtown Limerick, where the team will begin working from once it’s safe to do so.

“We’re incredibly excited about our new space, which is more than 14,000 square feet and nearly triple the size of our existing office!” Ryan said. 

“It’s also a ground-floor building, located in Limerick’s city center, which we chose specifically as it offers a great opportunity to share our company culture with the city, rather than going outside of town to an industrial park.” 

Being in the center of town, Ryan explained, allows WP Engine to not only benefit from Limerick’s tech talent but also be an integral part of it. The expanded office space will accommodate new hires, and the growing number of employees in the downtown area will serve as a boost for businesses reopening after more than a year of lockdowns. 

“We want to be part of the story of Limerick and its growth,” Ryan said, “and our new office is undoubtedly an investment in our team’s future as well as the city of Limerick itself.”

In addition to providing employees with a vibrant location to work from once they return to the office, our new location will also serve as a lifeline for recovering businesses in Limerick, as our employees will undoubtedly go shopping, go to restaurants, and get coffee at nearby establishments. 

Building a better workplace and a stronger community.

As WP Engine’s Limerick team keeps growing, our core values will also continue to serve as a guidepost for the type of workplace we aspire to build. 

Our Limerick team is already a shining example of these values in action and was recently named a Best Workplace in Ireland by Great Place to Work, the global authority on workplace culture.

Taking that spirit outside the office, Limerick team members also devote time and effort to a number of social initiatives as part of WP Engine’s wider Engine for Good corporate social responsibility program.

Those initiatives include supporting the Coding Careers for Women initiative as well as the Pieta organization, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Limerick Suicide Watch, and Age Action, all with some level of company fund-matching. 

Last but not least, WP Engine Limerick knows how to have fun! Prior to the pandemic, happy hours, games/trivia nights, and indoor soccer were regular occurrences, and the team is looking forward to resuming those activities as soon as possible.  

“We hire passionate, intelligent people who are aligned with WP Engine’s core values. There is a wonderful sense of togetherness. We are all rowing the boat in the same direction and having fun doing it!” said Senior Talent Advisor EMEA Darren O’Dwyer.

“The collaboration in the office is something special. It also means that a night out with WP Engine colleagues is guaranteed to be great craic.”

Want to find out more? Come grow with us at WP Engine Limerick!  Find a full listing of our open roles here.